Atlantis no Nazo (NES) review "Charming, yet irritating... Imaginative, yet dull..."

Atlantis no Nazo is a platformer from 1986 that only recently saw a release outside of Japan. Read that line one more time, and it should tell you where you stand on checking it out. If you don't like vintage platformers, especially those from the transitional period of the mid '80s, then skip it. If you dig old-school games, then it might be up your alley. It's a funny thing, really, because this game isn't a classic and features material that justifies both perspectives. It's full of the usual nonsensical and imaginative content that lovers of aged stuff adore, along with unfortunate instances of awkwardness and/or plainness.

Developer Sunsoft cites Super Mario Bros. as the inspiration for this piece, and it shows. We follow the adventures of the explorer, Wynn, as he tracks down his mentor. The former is your average Indiana Jones knockoff, and the latter looks like a chubby clown for some reason. For whatever reason, Atlantis figured they needed more guys who look like they eat children, and thus kidnapped Wynn's master. Thus, our man travels to the titular continent, where he battles bats, scorpions, mummies, slimes, and snails. You'd think the man would take a gun or even a sword on his travels, but instead he goes with an unlimited supply of explosives. His strange choice of weaponry doesn't immediately kill its target, as his foe ends up slowly traipsing past the blast. However, well-timed tosses get the job done.

Each stage (called a “zone”) consists of a straightforward run either to the right or left. 1st Zone pits you against low- and high-flying bats, some of which defecate on you. Your bombs prove useless here, so your only hope is to avoid damage until you reach a door leading to 2nd Zone. Newbies will likely go through the portal unaware that another one lies beyond it. Here's the question: does the next one take you to 2nd Zone as well, or maybe 11th Zone (or even one of the stages with mistranslated names, like “31th” Zone)? There's only one way to find out...

Atlantis isn't entirely linear. Your objective is to reach 100th Zone and rescue your mentor, and each door takes you to another stage, though not necessarily the next in line. Levels sometimes sport multiple exits, some of them taking you forward or backward multiple zones. In other occasions, an exit only leads to a small, isolated chunk of a zone filled with either goodies or untimely death. In other words, exploration is a gamble where you either profit, die, or regress. Hell, one door even takes you to a place where you have seconds to angle yourself to the right and through another gate or you'll fall to your death.

Cheapness like this justifies naysayers of older games. Some of them are known for unfairness you could never prepare for, designs of which led to the term “NES-hard.” These days, we see fewer sneak attacks or instances of unpredictable killing traps that soured experiences like this one. Sadly, Atlantis's nonsense doesn't end there. For instance, enemy spawning serves only to grate your nerves because foes randomly appear. Where you might run afoul of a skeleton in one area, you could find it isn't there in another session. Sometimes you jump over a pit and land safely on the other side. Another attempt later, you hop over it only to be greeted by a surprise flying fish or mantis you can't avoid. Bear in mind that each blow you take deducts a life, and there are no continues, saves, or passwords on hand. You must blast through all 100 levels in a single sitting, barring only the instances of save states and suspending offered by Switch Online.

Remaining alive is imperative, too, because you lose some power-ups upon death. One of the best you can find turns your explosives into smart bombs that damage everything on the screen. This isn't a temporary buff, either, as it stays in your inventory through the whole campaign or until you croak.

Clumsy mechanics also don't help the game's case. Though this is your standard “run and jump” affair, sometimes the latter proves needlessly tricky. Wynn builds speed like he should, but leaping through the air depends not on the pressure of your button pressing, but the momentum you've built. If you haven't built enough momentum or you're holding still, a jump barely advances you forward or upward. However, even a little momentum proves to be enough to pull off a huge leap, sometimes when all you need is a small one. This often leads to you overshooting platforms and passing away. And yes, some zones demand precision, possessing such setups as tiny treetops with huge spaces between them, or multiple platforms that are best negotiated by maintaining unbroken momentum and landing properly without missing a beat.

Don't get me wrong because some of those instances actually entertain. If you can hit a solid rhythm during tougher segments and not get screwed over by random adversaries, there's plenty of enjoyable precision platforming on offer.

Sadly, none of the more effective segments distract from Atlantis's duller elements. 1st Zone presents an early warning that you're in for a lot of uninspired environments with single-color backgrounds or repetitive design. Then you have 2nd Zone which copies and pasts the same environments and backgrounds repeatedly. Once in a while, you enter a maze-like stage that requires additional thought, careful treading, and exploration. Even then, though, familiar patterns crop up as up advance. Hell, that can be said about most of the content here because you end up blasting through a lot of the same real estate repackaged with variant colors or enemies. You only see the occasional flit of originality, such as pitch black stages that occasionally flash or the classic slippery floors.

If you're one of the folks who stuck around until the game's conclusion, you shouldn't be surprised by what you find there. You power through a seemingly impossible onslaught of high-speed projectiles until you reach a gemstone. Grabbing it somehow also rescues your master, the clown, who chuckles heartily while the “ending” plays out. It's not much of one, honestly... For all the work and nonsense you must battle your way through, what you receive is predictably underwhelming, but such is the case with older games. Part of me wants to say that those who skip the ancient stuff are right to do so, but there's still a piece of me that longs for ridiculous content that only '80s and '90s gaming provides. In that respect Atlantis no Nazo delivers, though its lovably bizarre material comes with a lot of outmoded cheapness.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (March 06, 2026) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.